The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding embodiments of the invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
In conventional marine recreational vessels, there is typically installed a kill switch of some sort, whose intended function is to enhance safety by stopping the vessel's engine, reducing speed or engaging a switch to disable features which are not safe to have active/on when the driver is not present at the controls, e.g., when the driver has been ejected from the vessel.
In conventional marine systems the kill switch typically consists of a physical lanyard or cord that the user must attach to his body or clothes or accessories already on his body.
In automotive systems, automobiles, machinery, or any other motorized vehicle (hereinafter referred to as the “vehicle”) a kill switch is not as common as it is in marine applications, although kill switches in these applications also have great utility. If the user/driver is somehow removed from the vehicle, either voluntarily or involuntarily, the vehicle equipped with a kill switch will be disabled in some way to limit unsafe behavior such as, but not limited to, continued operation without a driver or machinery operating in an unsupervised manner.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved kill switch solution that can perform an expanded set of tasks at an improved rate of performance compared to other devices found in the prior art.